


Devil's Pawns

by Helga_Leakadia



Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Case Fic, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic descriptions of violence, Implied Cannibalism, Implied pedophilia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, King County Sheriff's Department, Murder Mystery, Small town murders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:39:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17194931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helga_Leakadia/pseuds/Helga_Leakadia
Summary: Sam and Dean travel to Elberta, Georgia where the King County Sheriff's Department has a string of missing children cases. When the facts of the case don't add up, the brothers are stumped with what monster could be capable of committing such heinous crimes.





	1. Signal Forty-Eight

_Thinkin' 'bout the times you drove in my car..._

Sam woke with a jolt, pulling his head away from the cool glass window. The radio definitely wasn't this loud just a few minutes ago. Trying to shoot an irritated look at his brother, he knew Dean knew that he woke him up and was also ignoring his annoyance as he sang obnoxiously into the steering wheel.

" _Thinkin' that I might have drove you too far_! Welcome to the land of the living, Sammy." The grin just grew larger as Sam huffed in annoyance. It stayed plastered to Dean's face as he continued to sing. " _And I'm thinkin' 'bout the love that you laid on my table_."

"Dean! It's four in the morning. Normal people are asleep right now."

"Makes sense why you're awake then," Dean quipped, a sly smile aimed at his little brother. Sam shot him a glare as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He couldn't be too angry; Dean knew Sam was a sucker for a good Clapton song. He even joined in, " _I told you not to wander 'round in the dark_ ," before he asked where they currently were.

Dean lowered the volume only minimally before he said, "About fifty miles from Chattanooga. Got maybe three hours before we're there." That meant Sam slept through most of the ride through Tennessee.

"I can drive the rest of the way if you wanna sleep," he offered. Dean looked like he was going to refuse like he usually did, saying he was fine and that he could sleep when they made it to the motel. But to his surprise Dean nodded and pulled the car over to switch.

Dean settled into the passenger seat, shedding his jacket to use as a pillow against the window while Sam pulled back out onto the road. "Don't pick too shitty of a motel," Dean said as curled himself up to get a little shut eye.

"What? Find the sleaziest, dirtiest motel in Georgia with banjo music playing in the lobby?"

"Bitch."

"Jerk." Sam failed to hide the smile creeping onto his face. Like a good brother, he turned the volume on the radio down and continued driving towards Georgia. After only a few minutes he wondered if Dean woke him up on purpose just to see if Sam would offer to drive for a while. He didn't mind, if that had been the case.

Just over three and a half hours later, Sam was pulling the car into the parking lot of the motel near the center of town, if you could call it that. Elberta looked like you could walk across the entirety of it in about a half hour. From what Sam had seen, there was the motel, one diner, and whole lot of farms and fields. The population of the town was only a few hundred, which is why it was so strange that not one but two kids had disappeared. It was no wonder the sleepy town was freaking out.

The kid at the desk in the lobby seemed almost surprised that Sam wanted to get a room but he took the stolen card and handed a pair of keys to room nine without anything more than a polite "hello."

Sam returned to the Impala and opened the passenger door to wake Dean. It, however, worked a little too well, as the man was leaning on the window and nearly cracked his head on Sam's knees as he fell.

"You could warn a guy," he yelled indignantly as he righted himself on the seat. His back and neck gave satisfying pops as he stretched to wake himself up before getting the bags from the trunk.

With not a lot of information to go on with this case, Dean had no idea what they needed. It was a strangely nice feeling though, just hunting with Sam again, traveling around, strapping on the guns and crow bars, ridding the world of another monster. This was right, this was easy, it was where they belonged.

Even the basic motel room, with its bare walls and questionable carpeting felt homey. The beds, especially, were beckoning both of them, almost spreading their warmth across the room. It had been a hell of a drive and neither of them had slept much and it was early still, they could just...

The loud clicking that could only be Sam tapping the keys on his laptop interrupted Dean's fantasies of snuggling that pillow. Annoyed, he turned to the little table by the window where Sam had set himself up. He had news articles from the last week or so about both of the disappearances and was pulling up any lore he could think of that involves kids disappearing. As it turned out, kids could disappear for a lot of different reasons. Who knew?

The weird thing was though, that kids disappeared from Elberta, Georgia a lot. Like a lot a lot. It seemed like every ten or so years, another kid or even a handful of them would disappear. They would never show up again and no one could understand what happened to them. Their cases stayed open with the Sheriff's Department, but King County didn't seem to have the resources to find them, not with all the other strange happenings that caught Sam's eye.

Besides kids disappearing, other people would die strangely constantly as well. There were many instances of people drowning in their own blood, which was just creepy of you ask Dean. What could make someone's lungs fill with blood almost every year if not some type of powerful curse? He would have to make sure that Sam didn't drink any of the water just to be on the safe side. They had a large amount of people that seemed to just go insane as well. Enough to have necessitated an asylum being built next to the abandoned train station. And speaking of abandoned, shops never seemed to stay open. Businesses never prospered here, whether they were liquor stores or flower shops. They would stay open for a few years and then the owner would just run out of money. Usually it went down the drain quickly, either because the owner gambled or drank the money away.

Locals had a lot of ideas if the amount of blog posts and articles online were any indication. They stretched from hoodoo curses to ghosts of the original settlers who were slaughtered within a few years of the town being incorporated to aliens wanting to conduct experiments with human blood and not knowing how exactly to extract it. Each idea seemed less plausible than the one before it. But one thing was for sure: it sure as hell wasn't no aliens.

Dean thought that that amount of knowledge was enough to warrant catching a bit more sleep before they visited with the sheriff, but Sam seemed to want to force himself to stay awake to research more. He kept yawning and rubbing his eyes so he could use the sleep as much as Dean could.

"Sam," Dean said with his arms crossed over his chest, "I think we got enough to talk to the sheriff. Come sleep for a bit. We'll start in a few hours."

"I just want to look up a few more things."

"Like?"

"Like why this town seems to prone to bad things happening. It doesn't make sense why so much happens in only a few square miles in podunk Georgia."

"Could just be people blowing it outta proportion. Small town, got nothing better to do than make up conspiracy theories. Can't trust everything you read Sammy." Sam glared at him. It was a bit of a low blow. What were they supposed to trust if not what they read? The locals thinking aliens were after them? "All I'm saying is we should get a couple hours and see what the cops know. If they've been here long enough they might see some patterns."

Sam still didn't look convinced and Dean had to resign himself to getting coffee and donuts from the diner to make sure they could stay awake. They apparently had a lot of studying to do. As he got back into his car while Sam surfed the web, he understood how the kid did well enough to get a full ride to Stanford.

"Okay get this. This town seemed to just be asking to be cursed from the get-go. The land was originally owned by the Cherokee and Creek Indians mostly. Settlers started coming in the early 1700s and for a while they seemed to have lived pretty peacefully side-by-side."

"Sounds like most east coast towns," Dean said he shuffled through their dad's journal half-heartedly. They didn't have much to go on to really read through this, but Sam had the only laptop and Dean wasn't sure he wanted to be opening their giant reference books this early in the morning.

"Yeah, but then shit went down, also like many east coast towns. The town Elberta was officially founded in 1743 by a man named...Negan Hertzinger."

"Hell of a name."

"He seemed to do a lot of good for the town. He started the first school, figured out how to plant peaches and tobacco. Turned the town into a great trade zone for much of the south out to the Appalachians. Made the whole area pretty well known."

"Okay, I'm not seeing how this leads to a curse or anything."

"Well that's where it gets sketchy. There's no records of the Cherokees or Creeks doing much during the time in this area in particular. They just seemed to...vanish. And then, white people started vanishing too. First it was just farm workers and young kids, people who wouldn't be missed or could have been written off as wandered too far. Then land owners started vanishing. Then there was a big slaughter by the Indians on the townspeople, nearly wiped all of them off."

"So they got angry that their land was being taken? Not unheard of."

"No, definitely not unheard of. But after multiple instances of this, Negan was able to get permission from King George to force them out of Elberta. They attacked back, killed hundreds of Natives and forced the survivors west. And apparently, one of the survivors put a curse on the town as revenge."

"What kind of curse? How do we break it?"

"Still looking into that. But it caused basically an outbreak of tuberculosis that even now seems to happen here and there. It also seems that it caused Negan and his family to go broke. They lost a lot of their trade abilities because other towns were settling with better resources and their crops started dying here. Negan's wife died in childbirth in 1744 and then he just disappeared a few years later. No body or anything was ever found."

"And all of this is because some Cherokee medicine man wanted revenge?" Sam shrugged. If that was the case, this shouldn't be too difficult as long as they could find the source and break it. But then again, this was a curse that was still going strong almost three hundred years later. This guy must have been extremely powerful. And in fairness, it was their land first. Dean didn't want to admit it, but it didn't seem all that fair that they got pushed off their land.

Grudgingly, he settled himself down to put in a few hours of reading.

"Alright, enough of this freaking history Sam. Let's go see this Sheriff Samuels fellow and see what he can tell us about what's going on now." Dean slapped the table as he stood, his knees popping as they straightened out. The empty coffee cups had long been discarded onto the floor surrounding their uncomfortable chairs along with the heavy book of Native American folklore Dean had shoved to the floor with a frustrated howl.

Sam looked at his watch and stood up a little more easily than his restless brother. He silently opened his duffel and pulled out their suits and ties that Dean oh-so-helpfully forgot to take out so they wouldn't wrinkle. He wasn't sure if the the slow smile he felt more than saw spread across Dean's face was over that thought or if he was just happy to be getting out of the room, but he could assume.

He ignored his older brother's whines as he pulled out the iron to at least get the worst of the creases out, trying to remind himself that he was, indeed, the younger man here.

"How necessary is this? You think the sheriff will really notice if we have a couple wrinkles in our shirts?"

"This might be easier if you stopped using the iron to make grilled cheese, ya know."

"I never used this iron," Dean grumbled as he picked up and put down his gun for the third time. This was more than his usual restlessness. This town was already giving him the skeeves. Sam was right: too much had happened too often in such a small area of the country. But the lore was just so all over the place that he had no idea where to start to pinpoint what they were supposed to be looking for. Curses? Witches? Ghosts or spirits escaping hallowed ground?

The giddiness Dean felt was amplified as well, so at least it wasn't just his paranoia acting up. It stayed long after Sam helped adjust his tie and they left the room. The sheriff's department was further into town than their humble abode, leading them passed miles of peach trees and wide open fields, both in various stages of beauty. The rock station faded in and out when they drove into the thickest of the trees.

The center of town, if you could really call it a center, was minimal at best. There was a lone gas station in the middle of what was probably the only intersection with a street light before a sharp hill started. The only other buildings were a large white church close to the road with a library sharing its driveway far behind it. It was separated by a large field filled with dying trees that looked to have been planted by a farmer while he was blind drunk. Weren't trees supposed to be planted in rows...for reasons?

Down the hill and through some gravel roads surrounded by woods, they finally pulled up to a light-colored brick building with more minivans in the parking lot than patrol cars. Dean kept the car idling as he looked for a sign that he maybe took a wrong turn on any one of the unnamed roads. But no, this was Elberta's town hall and the sheriff's office was somewhere within the building.

Stepping through the doors, they were greeted with a young smiling security guard. Sam flashed his badge at her quickly with a smile of his own. She directed them up the stairs to their right where they were met with a thick wooden door that simply said "King County Sheriff's Department" in gold lettering. Inside, there were four desks, all empty, in the middle of the room with another wooden door off to one side. A woman sat at a computer in the window next to that door. The rest of the cramped room was littered with file cabinets, cork boards filled with maps and mug shots, and a long desk with another computer, printer, and fax machine.

The woman slid the glass window aside and cheerfully said, "Can I help you gentlemen?"

Sam again flashed his badge to her, holding it out only long enough for her to see that he vaguely matched the photo attached to it and said, "Agents Coverdale and Aldridge. We're here to talk to Sheriff Samuels."

She wrinkled her nose in confusion. "He hasn't been in for the past few days, I don't know why--"

"He called us a few days ago, we weren't able to get here until now. Other duties, you know," Dean supplied hoping charm worked on her. She seemed to lose the hint of suspicion behind her eyes at least.

"Well you can talk to Rick, then. Have a seat."

"Thank you ma'am." They both seated themselves in the guest chairs by the desks as the girl went further into her part of the room, presumably to the sheriff's office. Sam tried to peer through the window to catch a glimpse of the man called Rick before he came out, but he couldn't see much past the window frame.

Instead he looked at the desk he was sitting closest to. It was messier than the others with files spilling out everywhere and pens and pencils covering them. A worn-looking stress ball sat in one corner while a hand grip sat in the other. There was a photo dead in the center of two men in King County uniforms, smiling, their arms around each other. One had his hat askew, almost covering one of his deep blue eyes, while the other opted for a baseball cap that said "POLICE" instead, shading most of his face from the bright sun.

Sam was just thinking about pulling the drawer open to see if he could find anything else of interest when the door opened and the blue-eyed man from the photo walked out. Besides having more stubble on his face he looked like the picture could have been taken yesterday, though the extra stripes on his sleeve said otherwise. His cowboy boots clomped when he left the carpeted area for the linoleum of the bullpen. He wore an easy smile that didn't reach his eyes and held his hat in his hands.

Sam and Dean both stood up and shook his hand as he said, "Marshals" in greeting.

"Agents, actually. FBI. I'm Dean Aldridge, my partner Sam Coverdale."

"Rick Grimes, acting sheriff. I thought Ryan was calling the Marshals." He placed his hat on the desk Dean was currently sitting at but instead of taking a seat himself he leaned on the desk facing the brothers, his arms crossed nonchalantly over his chest, but still eyed the two of them suspiciously. Sam had to hand it to this guy, he was far more observant than their usual cops, especially for such a sleepy area as this.

"Must have changed his mind. We just go where our supervisor sends us."

"Well I appreciate whatever help I can get. Of course I have two missing kids on my hands when Samuels gets himself bit by a snake."

"Yeah those assholes will sneak right up on ya, won't they," Dean tried to joke. Rick tilted his head towards the older man, taking note of what felt like Dean's entire soul. But he assumed he couldn't actually see it since he wasn't rearing back in horror. "What can you tell us so far?"

"Not a lot, unfortunately," Rick said, going into professional cop mode and striding towards the emptiest of the cork boards. It had a map with a few blue or white thumb tacks and pictures of two young kids. He pointed to the boy. "Hector Martinez, reported missing by his father when he didn't come home from a friend's house where he was last seen eight days ago. We searched the friend's house, talked to the parents, everything checks out." Then he pointed to the other photo, a girl this time. He swallowed before saying, "Colette Reed. Last seen three days ago, also at a friend's house. That family also checks out."  
"These two have anything in common?"

"It's a small town so they go to the same school but don't run in the same circles. Colette is a grade above Hector, they don't seem to have many friends in common. Hector plays baseball, Colette is a swimmer. Neither of the friends they were last seen with have much in common with each other either."

"Any chance they could have run away?"

"No history of it from either of them. Both live with just their fathers but they both have good home lives. They're good kids, agents," he sounded almost resigned when he said that, but Sam liked that he continued to talk about them in the present tense. But all three men knew the odds of finding kids after the twenty-four hour mark was up, which was especially true for a kid who had been missing over a week. He was about to open his mouth to ask another question when the main door opened. The other man from the photo, sans his baseball cap covering his thick brown curls, strode in. He lost half a second of his swagger when he saw his suited company but quickly regained his composure.

"Shane Walsh, Sam Coverdale and Dean Aldridge from the FBI. They're here to help with Colette and Hector." They shook hands, Shane eyeing them with the same suspicious glint in his eye Rick had earlier.

"Nice as it is to have some extra eyes, this really what you need to be around for?"

"Possible kidnappings, makes it a federal case. Not gonna be a problem we're here, is it?"

Shane didn't bristle under Dean even though he was several inches shorter than him. He just squared his shoulders a little harder and said, "Just don't need y'all thinking we need saving from city boys in suits."

"How's Carol?" Rick asked, overtaking anything any of the other men were about to say. Shane dropped his attempt at grabbing alpha status at the mention of the woman's name and said, "Same as always" dejectedly. "But I ran into Martinez. He found this on his windshield this morning." He handed Rick a manila evidence envelope, which Rick carefully shook open.

Out fell a thin, silver chain with a horse pendant hanging from it. It glowed under the fluorescent lights.

"Is it Colette's?" Rick asked after staring at it for a moment.

"Not that I know of. I've never seen it before."

"If I may?" Sam cut in before Rick could put it away. He stepped back to give Sam and Dean a chance to look for themselves. It was heavy enough that Sam knew the pendant was real silver. But the chain was tinted green, as if it was not real and had been in water. The horse itself was intricately designed, with its mane and hooves clearly cut into the silver. Its tail seemed to actually swish was it spun on the chain. But the most interesting part that could not have been an accident was that the hooves seemed to carved strangely. Almost as if they were backwards.

"We'll keep this from Michonne until we know for sure. How fast can Jenner get here?"

"Not until he's done with that arson case. Not for a couple days at least."

"They won't be any faster then," Rick said with a nod towards Sam and Dean. Shane huffed a low scoff as he nodded in agreement. "Think Daryl might--?"

"Not if you don't want Michonne to know anything." Rick pursed his lips but had to agree with Shane. They could wait a few days for a forensics expert to come in from Atlanta. Until then they could stick to the grunt work and look for those kids.

Sam was about ready to pull Dean away from here to go to the records department downstairs or the library to try and find out what could resist silver when the radios on Shane and Rick's belts blared loud and inaudibly.

Shane immediately jumped away from Rick's side and turned his radio down while Rick said into his own, "Dispatch please repeat."

"Signal forty-eight at South and Charolais by Mills Pond."

"FUCK!" Shane yelled as his fist connected with one of the filing cabinets, denting the side. He didn't seem to notice as he pulled a black handgun out of the drawer at his desk and swiftly attached it to his ankle while Rick pushed a large silver revolver down into his utility belt.

"You'll follow us," he said right before affirming with dispatch that they were on their way.

"What's a signal forty-eight?"

"They found a body," Rick all but growled as he shoved the brothers out the door.


	2. Submerged

Shane drove the back roads like a bat out of hell, leaving Dean to follow the large cloud of red dust he left in his wake. Even Sam, who was more than used to Dean's driving by now was grabbing onto the oh shit handle to keep from sliding around the vinyl seat. Dean only knew they were driving deeper through the woods as the trees were getting thicker around them and the road was more of a trail than anything else. But the deputies seemed to know where they were going, even if they took that one turn on two wheels.

They came out on the other side of the trees into a clearing with thick marsh eating away at the tree line, where another patrol car was already present along with a sizeable group of on-lookers.

Neither Shane nor Rick wasted any time in straightening out the car before getting out and ducking under the yellow tape. A younger deputy nodded them towards the wetland before turning to see Sam and Dean. One look at their badges allowed them to duck the tape as well and follow the two men.

The civilians behind them whispered to each other as they strained to see whatever they could, but it seemed the deputies had wound the tape around trees far enough away to hide the more gruesome of the scene. The few iPhones being pulled out were not going to be overly successful.

Another uniformed officer was already talking to Rick and Shane while Sam and Dean slowly squelched through the thickening mud.

The pond was down a small embankment. There were footprints everywhere in the mud hugging the water. Shane and Rick were both putting on plastic booties to cover their own prints while the young officer crouched to take photos. His camera was aimed directly at two sneakered feet sticking out of the wet grass.

Rick came back over with booties for the two of them. "Is it one of the kids," Sam asked quietly.

"It's Hector. His dad is gonna have to make the ID but...my son played baseball with him."

They walked towards the body, Shane's jaw set tight and his hand gripping the back of his head angrily as he paced around Hector like a guard dog. Rick stood beside him, a calming hand between his shoulder blades.

"Keep it together, brother," he said as soothingly as he could with his own jaw clenched.

"I want whoever this mother fucker is out of my town! His head should be on a platter for this shit."

"I know. We'll find him. We won't stop 'til we get this bastard."

Shane looked ready to punch or shoot whoever came within fifteen feet of the child but Sam and Dean needed to see him for themselves.

They reached the body as the officer--L Vance according to his badge--finished taking the last of his close-up shots."Agents," he said with a nod.

Dean nodded back and said, "Anything you can tell us?"

"Not much. Can't move the body 'til the ME gets here from Atlanta. Hopefully he won't be much longer, but until then I can't do much. I can say he didn't die here, though."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Ain't any mud on his shoes," Vance said with a nod towards the bottoms of the boy's sneakers. Sure enough, they had very little mud or grass on them. Sam, however, could see that his pants were soaked, even though his head was closer to the water than his lower half.

"Good eye."

"I watch a lot of CSI," Vance beamed proudly. Dean's scoff was quiet enough that only Sam heard. Once Vance walked back up the embankment, Dean turned to face his brother.

"These people don't know what they're up against."

"Neither do we," Sam pointed out. "They're gonna be a problem, though," he said with a nod towards Rick and Shane who were now close to the yellow tape separating them from a man they were talking to. "They're close to this one."

"Everyone in this town is going to be close to it. We still got a girl missing." Sam nodded distractedly as he looked at the body of Hector Martinez. He was lying on his stomach, with one arm at his side and the other bent at the elbow, his hand near his head. Besides the fact that two of his fingers were missing from his right hand, there didn't appear to be much damage. Barely a hair was out of place on his head and while his jeans were wet, his green t-shirt was dry and bunched up a few inches above his waist.

The brothers allowed the deputies to handle interviewing their fellow citizens. They learned very little of interest from anyone. Thankfully, though, it did not take long for the medical examiner to show up. He was a stocky man in blue scrubs with a dark, curly mullet that was not as impressive as Ash's, but looked rebellious enough for hia profession that Dean felt the corners of his lips twitch slightly.

"I suppose you two must be the agents come to assist the fine men of King County with their five-six turned four-eight."

Sam was able to cut Dean off before whatever dumbass remark he was about to say could make its way out of his larynx with a "Yes, that's us. Here to help in any way we can. I'm Sam, this is Dean."

"Eugene Porter, ME. Due to the nature of our introductions I won't be saying it's a pleasure."

"Of course not," Dean said sarcastically, receiving a whack to the stomach for his lack of filter. But they followed the man down to where Hector was still lying and Dean squared his shoulders, ready to get to work. Eugene set himself right to work as well, talking quietly into a tape recorder and looking over every inch of the little boy.

Vance came back down with his camera to show the doctor the pictures he had previously taken. Eugene pointed to a few areas in the mud near Hector for him to take a few more photos but otherwise seemed satisfied with the young man's work.

Sam and Dean hung back and simply watched while they worked. Sam ran through the long list of anything that would go after kids and then dump them. A witch was the most obvious. Maybe a powerful shtriga.

"Rick needs to present himself. Now!" Eugene's voice shooks slightly as he made his demand to Vance who looked positively green. Sam and Dean walked a few steps closer to see what the commotion was.

Hector was definitely not attacked by a shtriga.

Eugene had flipped him over so that he was now lying on his back, his right hand now laying lightly on his exposed stomach. He looked anything but peaceful from this view. His deep brown eyes were open and blank. He had cuts lining his cheeks and his lips. One of his ears was hanging onto his head by a thread of skin.

His t-shirt was ripped to shreds and covered in dried blood. He had long, deep scratches littering his exposed skin on his chest and stomach. Smaller ones covered his arms and legs, leaving his jeans a torn up wreck.

Dean just stared at the horror scene in front of him. They didn't often see the bodies where they were found, usually instead catching them in the morgue during or after their autopsy. Seeing him like this, small and vulnerable and completely exposed to whatever wanted to have their share of him made Dean's blood boil and bile rise in his throat. Whatever did this to him deserved a slow and painful death. Maybe a bath in holy water or used as target practice with iron bullets. Hell Dean was even considering making it a game to hunt this son of bitch and keep them as scared as Hector probably was.

He only noticed Rick had made it to the scene when he felt the sheriff vibrating with his attempt at suppressed rage. Dean saw the slightest twitches of his head as he attempting to keep himself in check. It was amazing that it actually worked; the man closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, his fist clenched so tightly it shook, before he opened his eyes again, a new determined gleam in his blue orbs.

When he spoke to Eugene, it was still a growl through his clenched teeth. "Any idea what coulda done this?"

"Preliminary look I'd say any one of the sharp force wounds could have been sufficient. One of the ones to the torso most likely." He was crouched over the boy's body now, bending the arm at the elbow to reveal small cuts along the inside of his forearm. "He put up one furious fight." It was said with such a strange mixture of sadness and pride for a man who did not know the little boy at all that it caused the thin wall Rick had up to start to crumble. Sam instinctively put a hand on the man's shoulder, half expecting to need to block a swing with the other hand. Rick was still shaking, the determined look sliding into a vacant stare, as if he was trying to pull himself completely away from the sight in front of him. But that would never happen. Hector would haunt him for a long time.

Eugene did all that he could in the field once the liver temperature came back to say that Hector had probably died within the last twelve hours. Monsters all liked to play with their food before eating it but keeping it for days just to discard it like this was a whole other level of painfully disgusting. Hector was put into a body bag and brought up to the van to go to the hospital. There was an imprint in the mud where his blood had dried and his body had lain for hours.

Sam used his size to cover Eugene and Hector as they passed the onlookers who were still hanging around the caution tape. Didn't they have anything better to do? Shane and Vance did their best to keep them as far back as possible until the doors to the van were closed and Eugene was driving away. People shouted questions at them that they ignored. Vance still looked like he was going to vomit (maybe again) while Shane looked but lost and pissed off. They all headed back to their cars, lost in dark thoughts.

Rick talked as soothingly as he was able to Vance before sending him home. He walked back to the others, his bowed legs moving like jelly underneath him. He leaned against the door of the Crown Victoria, pinching the bridge of his nose. Shane stayed with his elbows propped on the trunk, fingering the keys. Both of them had removed their hats, allowing their sweaty curls to breathe a bit. But now it only allowed them to grip them roughly, causing them to look haggard and wild.

With a deep breath, Rick pushed himself off the car and said, "I'll go to Caesar's, tell him...tell him."

"I'll go with you," Sam offered. Dean shot him a quick look but was ignored as Shane wordlessly handed the keys to Rick and the younger Winchester seated himself in the passenger seat. Shane continued to look lost as the car pulled away, forcing Dean to grip his bicep lightly and say, "C'mon," before leading him to the Impala. Besides a few directions to lead them back to the station, he was silent for the ride back.

Dean kept his jaw set and grip on the steering wheel tight. He and Sam had a lot of research to do and it looked like he was going to have to start on his own while Sam dealt with the father. But first, he needed some answers about this kid.

He followed the silent deputy back into the bullpen where Shane finally let the weight of everything he just saw crush down on him and crumpled into his chair. Dean sat awkwardly next to him at what he now knew was Rick's desk, finding a pen to fidget with. Finally, Shane said quietly, "Rick's boy, Carl, is Hector's age. I was there when he was born. First one to hold him. After Rick obviously. I never wanted kids but when I held that kid in my arms for the first time...man I knew there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for him. I promised that day that I'd always keep him safe. All I could think today...if that was Carl...it _could_ have been Carl..."

Dean nodded knowingly. "It doesn't ever get easier. You don't want to let it get easier. That's when you fuck up." Shane looked up at him, dark eyes searching green. That little bit of resentment still hiding behind the fear and confusion and anger seemed to dissipate when Dean held his gaze. He ran a hand through his thick curls and nodded curtly.

Clearing his throat, Shane stood up and walked over to the cork board again. He stared at it a moment before wheeling it closer to the center of the room. He sat himself back at his desk, a pad and pen pulled towards him.

"Eugene will call as soon as his finishes the autopsy. It's top priority." A beat as he chewed on the top of the pen. He pulled a red thumb tack from his desk and stuck it in the map where the pond was located. He stared at it a moment, trying to see a pattern that just wasn't there. He turned back to Dean and said, "This means Colette could still be alive."

Dean nodded, knowing that whether or not that was true didn't matter at the moment. Shane needed some kind of hope to hang onto. "Let's talk about her."

"She lives with her dad. Mike Reed. He's an architect, designs bridges mostly. Her mama ran off about five years ago with another guy. Colette left the house three days ago to ride bikes with Wendy Dawson. According to Wendy, they were racing around Dwight Harris's farm. When she looked back, Colette was gone." He pointed to the white tack on the map further to the right of the pond and the blue tack, where Hector was last seen alive.

"Anything strange ever happen at that farm?"

Shane heaved a glorious sigh, running his hand on the back of his head. "'Bout twenty-somethin' years ago three bodies were dumped there. All young women in their mid-twenties, strangled. Their cases are still open."

"Any ideas on that?" Dean assumed strangling wasn't his forte but any little bit counts. Murdered women probably aren't the happiest of spirits.

"I remember kids talking about it for weeks in school. But you know how kids talk. But I don't see how that's related."

"Probably nothing. Anything else strange you can think of? More recent maybe?"

"No, nothing. Cows are doing well up there, have been for a while." Dean's eyebrows raised at the mention of the cows without him needing to ask about animal slayings. He didn't react more than that however and continued to look at the cork board. There was minimal information that could actually be useful. One day here and they were already hitting a frustrating amount of dead ends.

The door slammed against the wall and a tall black woman with thick braids flying behind her stampeded into the room. Shane whipped around fast enough to grab the woman's shoulders as she held Shane's forearms in a death grip. Dean wasn't sure if he should stand and help or not.

The woman was looking at Shane without malice or evil in her eyes, though. She looked terrified. "I h-heard...Mary...Mary c-called. She said...sh-she said..."

"Shhh, honey, calm down. It wasn't Colette." Shane's hands left her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, rubbing soothing circles across her back. She shook in his arms but pushed him away after a moment, gathering strength with each breath she took. She waited for him to say more, a hard look in her eye. "It was Hector."

"So she's just next," the woman said, her voice deep with anger and fear.

"Don't you talk like that!" Shane snapped at her so vehemently it was like he'd slapped her. He stared her down, though, his eyes blazing, before saying, "I'll find her. You stay out of this and let us work."

"We're looking into it on our end too. You ain't stopping us from that. Not from this."

Shane's fist went to his mouth as he breathed in to calm himself down. With a short nod, refusing to meet the woman's eyes, he said, "Fine. Then you should know we have the FBI here. Dean Aldridge. His partner is with Rick at Martinez's."

The woman set her eyes on Dean for the first time. She kept her face hard as she looked him up and down, taking in everything from his disheveled hair to the mud on his boots. Her face softened slightly and she said, "Sorry, agent. Michonne Stinton. Colette is my boyfriend's daughter."

Dean stood to shake her hand. Her grip was strong and calloused. "Sorry you're going through this. We're doing everything we can to find her."

"Well any way I can help, let me know."

"Michonne is a private investigator, owns Buffalo Needle Detective Agency in town."

"Well I guess we'll be working close here." Dean tried to smile at her. She nodded solemnly while Shane gritted his teeth.

"I don't want you getting too close to this, Michonne. If anything--"

"I know the risks Shane," she cut him off but there was no bite in her interruption. It was pure, sad fact that they both seemed to just accept by the looks on their faces. "Daryl went to Martinez's."

Shane perked up at that. "You didn't _stop_ him?"

"Even I'm not good enough to handle that kind of storm." Dean looked between the two, confusion and worry hitting him.

"What's going on? What could he do?"

"Nothing to worry about," Shane answered quickly. "Rick is there." As if that eased all the concerns, which for Dean it certainly did not. He didn't know any of these people and if some dude named Storm Daryl shouldn't be there then Dean should be. Shane noticed the tension didn't fall from his shoulders. "Daryl's Michonne's partner. He's a good guy. Great investigator. Just hot headed."

Dean eased slightly. A temperamental southern man wasn't the worst Sam has ever had to deal with. And these two could come in handy in their research. So he relaxed and nodded his head before turning to Michonne.

"My partner and I were sent here because there seems to be a lot of disappearances every few years. Anywhere I can go to look into some the older records of this?"

Michonne smiled slightly, revealing blindingly white teeth. "I know a few places. I can show you."

"That'd be great." He pulled out a business card and wrote his cell phone number on the back of it before handing it to Shane. "Here. Call me if you come up with anything else or the autopsy report comes in."

Shane took the card and nodded. He gave Michonne's hand a slight squeeze before she followed Dean out of the room and towards the stairs.

"The Records Department is back there," she pointed to the right of the stairs once they reached the bottom. "But the library has more history books."

"I think the library would be better."

"Yeah, I thought so," she said before leading him out the door to the parking lot.

* * *

Caesar Martinez lived on the other side of the church, past a few more peach farms and an old plantation house. The lawn was starting to become overgrown and the flowers in the windows were dying. Rick parked the car on the street but didn't get out. He pinched the bridge of his nose again and drew in a deep breath.

The car ride, like Dean and Shane's, had been silent. Sam chewed on his lip as he went over how to tell a man his twelve-year-old was never coming home. This was always the worst part. He looked at the sheriff in the driver's seat and wondered if Rick had ever had to do this before. Should Sam take the lead on this?

"He's gonna know as soon as he sees me. Don't really matter what I say," Rick said, almost reading Sam's mind. His shoulders squared and he put his hat back on. He was ready as he'll ever be.

The two men walked up the driveway to the front door. Rick breathed one more time before knocking. It took a few minutes before they heard the lock and another few seconds before the door actually opened. Like he knew what was on the other side and wanted to prevent it as long as he could. Sam couldn't blame him.

Caesar would have looked younger than Sam were it not for the heavy bags under his eyes. His stubble said he hadn't shaved in days nor had he washed his thick, dark hair. He looked just like his son. Rick didn't say anything to him. Just removed his hat like the southern gentleman he was and that was all Caesar needed to know that his world had just ended.

He didn't try to stop the tears from falling. He let them land wherever they wanted. For him, there was no point in caring. "No Rick. No. Nononono." He grabbed onto the door frame to steady himself. He refused to look at either of the men on his doorstep. He looked to the sky, at the floor, at his own hands. Anywhere but these men.

"Caesar--"

The man whipped around and slammed his fist into the banister behind him. The ball decoration splintered, pieces flying into the darkness of the rest of the house while others lodged into his broken and bloody fist. Holding his wrist he exited the house and down the steps. He stared out at the yard. His injured hand hung, blood dripping onto the pavement. Rick and Sam remained stoic, waiting for Caesar to make the first move every time.

It took a few minutes but he turned to the men on his porch once more. "When?" He croaked more than anything else. The tears were streaked on his face but no new ones fell.

"This morning." It didn't matter if he was asking when his son was killed or when he was found. But when he asked how, Rick hesitated. He deserved to know. He needed to know. He would have to see it later when he went to identify his son. "Caesar, I--"

"Dammit Rick, just tell me how!" His yell was fierce but ended in a hiccupping sob. He pleaded quietly, "Just tell me how." He sank to his knees on this cement walkway. Rick was at his side immediately, a hand on his shoulder. He didn't say anything. Nothing he said would matter. He just needed to keep a hand on this drowning man. When Caesar's wails died down to sobs, Rick said quietly, "Stabbed. He was stabbed."

The sound of a motorcycle engine met their ears. Caesar dropped his hand to the ground to lift himself back up, using Rick merely to guide him upwards. He set his jaw and looked at the sheriff. "You get this monster. You get this...get that sum'bitch that...that did that to my boy."

"I'll do everything I can. You have my word."

The motorcycle took a sharp turn into the driveway. The rider, clad in torn jeans and a sleeveless shirt under a leather vest raced off the bike, leaving it idling behind him. His hair flew into his eyes as he tried to take in the scene in front of him.

He looked torn on what to do first. Question Sam, question/punch Rick, or go to Caesar. Caesar made the decision for him when he flung himself into the new visitor. He looked taken aback to have the man suddenly implanting himself to his chest but his arms wound around him instinctively. He rested his chin on Caesar's shoulder and looked at Rick for answers. It seemed he got everything he needed from just a few moments of looking at the man because he nodded slightly before pulling away from the hug.

His hands went to either side of Caesar's face and held him, forcing him to look the biker in the eyes. He whispered something to him that Sam couldn't hear but Caesar nodded, his hand going to the other man's elbow before he pulled himself away.

As Caesar walked away, Rick looked at the newcomer over with all the authority he had left in his exhausted body. It was all ignored in favor of him walking right up to Rick and asking fiercely, "What d'ya know about this fucker?"

"I need you to stay out of this one, Daryl."

Daryl's eye narrowed. "The hell do ya mean, 'stay outta this one?'"

"I don't want you and Michonne involved in this one. It's probably not--"

"That ain't your call to make, Rick," Daryl gritted out. His jaw was set hard in his indignant face. Rick just looked at Daryl, his eyes sad and his face long. He opened his mouth again, no doubt to continue the argument, but Daryl cut him off. "Ya need my help either way. Don't tell me ya want strangers helpin' 'stead of me, man!"

"It's not like that, Daryl. It's just..."

"Just what, Rick?" Daryl yelled instead of hissing, his temper flaring past saving. "You think ya can catch whatever piece of shit did this? To _my_ godson? To my _best friend's_ kid?" Think I can't handle it?"

"I know you can. That ain't you. But this is my jurisdiction, my case."

"Don't pull that authority shit on me, Grimes! This is my family!" With that, Daryl gave Rick's shoulders a hard shove, forcing him back a few steps, with Daryl following right on his toes. Before he could shove him a second time, Rick lined up their torsos to block Daryl's advances before pressing their foreheads together. It took all of a millisecond for Daryl to calm, if only just a bit. The smell of his cologne was instantly soothing.

"I need you to keep a level head, brother," Rick whispered, his voice soothing but with all the authority of a sheriff taking charge. "Can you do that?"

Daryl scoffed before nodding stiffly against Rick's temple. A hand came up to grip the soft hairs on the nape of his neck and he closed his eyes. After a moment, he pushed Rick away just enough to look in his eyes.

"Ya can't keep me out of this. Neither of us. It ain't right."

"I can't keep you from looking into it. And I won't. But you need to let me do my job."

"I got you Rick." A soft, loving slap met Daryl's cheek before Rick stroked the stubbled skin a few times. _I know_ , he was saying.

Sam watched Rick and Daryl out of the corner of his eye while he spoke to Caesar. There hadn't been any strange happenings at the house or anywhere the Hector frequented. No random disappearances, no strange smells or cold spots. They haven't even had to change any of their light bulbs recently. Hector hadn't been acting funny nor had any of his friends. There was still Hector's room to check out and see if there were any hex bags that had no business being around.

He was led through the dark foyer to the stairs. They paused outside a door to the left of the balcony. He rested his hand on the door knob but didn't turn it. "If it's okay with you...I'll leave you here."

"Of course. I won't be long," Sam said and let Caesar retreat to what was most likely his bedroom before opening the door to the boy's.

Sam hated going into victims' rooms. They always felt like unplanned shrines just asking to be torn apart looking for answers that probably weren't there. Hector's room was no different. It was like a time capsule from a week prior. The plaid comforter was thrown off the side of the bed to reveal navy blue bedsheets pulled off of one of the corners and a matching pillow that still had the imprint of Hector's head in it.

A desk stood against one wall with bookshelves on top of it, filled with team shots of soccer and baseball players. Rifling through the drawers proved as useless as ever: they were like Dean's glove compartment, just filled with all sorts of crap that didn't have a place anywhere else. Stale gum and spare change and an assortment of pens and pencils crowded the right hand drawer. On the desk itself, Sam picked up what looked like the workings of a comic book, sheets of paper filled with meticulous dark lines and messy scrawl for dialogue. As he flipped through the pages they became less detailed, less finished. Always to remain unfinished now.

Kicking away some dirty socks, Sam sank to his knees but found nothing under the bed but dust and clothes long forgotten. The mattress only housed some skin mags and his pillow hid nothing but a sketch pad with more unfinished works and a flashlight.

A buzzing in his pocket led to him reaching for his phone as he ran his hand behind the headboard.

"Dude something hinky is going on in this town," Dean's voice came out before Sam could greet him.

Sighing, Sam said, "Well it's not hex bag hinky. Nothing in the kid's room at all. His dad said nothing weird has happened either."

"Still, something is up. They got PI's sticking their noses in this too."

"PI's? Who hired them?"

"No one. One of them is the girlfriend of the girl's dad. Other one is apparently with you."

"He seems pretty close to Hector's dad."

"I don't like this, Sam. You watch yourself around this guy."

"Don't worry about me, Dean, I'm a big boy."

"Yeah I know you are, Sasquatch. Listen, meet me--"

Sam turned around to see Daryl standing in the doorway, a hard look in his eye. "Dean I gotta go," Sam said hurriedly before ending the call. Daryl had his arms crossed as he leaned on the frame, looking too casual for someone who was supposed to be mourning a child's death. His eye bared into Sam's, squinting as if to read something only he could see.

"Find what you're looking for?" His voice was toneless, not accusing and not helpful. Sam felt almost lost by it, not knowing if he should be worried or not. He was just empty.

"Everything seems in order here." Daryl chewed the inside of his lip before finally taking his eyes off Sam to look around the room. His eyes stopped on the drawing on the desk for just a moment before he nodded and turned back towards the stairs. Sam couldn't help the worry pooling in his stomach as Daryl gave him one last blank look as he walked away.

Rick was already outside by the car waiting for him. He wordlessly got into the passenger seat, only speaking to ask to be dropped off at the library. He needed to look into everything he could, having no clue what could be terrorizing this town.


	3. Suspicions and Leads

"You don't have to worry about Daryl." Dean looked at Michonne as he slid behind the wheel. It was always strange looking over and seeing someone very not-Sam sitting on his right. They always looked too small and confused compared his giant of a brother who had every answer Dean could need. But Michonne looked at least comfortable in the car, like she spent a lot of time on the road. She was relaxed.

When the car started she continued, "He's a good guy. The best, really. Worst he'll do is give your partner fleas." The sudden image of Sam hopping around their motel room trying to reach a particularly annoying itch in the middle of his back made him snort quietly as he pulled out onto the road.

After that, Michonne didn't say much besides directions to get Dean back to the library on the main road. She shot Dean hooded looks constantly, like she was trying to read a story only she could see. It made him uneasy; if there was one thing Dean hated it was strange people trying to find out about him. They wouldn't like what they would find.

It was only a ten minute drive to the library, where Dean pulled into a spot in the back lot, just far enough away from the fence to keep the cows on the other side from sticking their noses too close the grills. Michonne got out of the car but instead of heading for the door, she went right up to the fence to pet one of the more curious of the smelly beasts. Dean, for his part, kept his distance. It was his turn for laundry next and he did not want to have to try and figure out how to get cow turds out of his pant legs.

"I've lived here for a long time now," she said without looking away from the cow. Dean tilted his his head to one side, waiting to see where this was going. "There's a lot of history in the town. A lot of weird history." She finally looked over at him, her eyes glinting, trying to get a hidden meaning across with her words. Dean, however, was not going to take the bait just yet and instead continued to stay silent, waiting for her to continue whatever it was she was trying to say. "Be careful who you talk to and what you ask." She didn't say it as a threat to him. Just as if she was resigned to the fact that the people here were the way that they were.

They walked to the front of the building and up the marble stairs to the double doors. As much as Dean tried to avoid these places and let Sam hole himself up in here by himself, he had to admit that stepping into the warm and slightly dusty air of a local library always did give him a feeling of safety. The books didn't talk to him like they probably did to Sam, who could cuddle up to a paperback like a five-year-old cuddles a blanket, but running his hand along the spines of old hard covers was soothing. It wasn't as good as when he learned to strum the strings of a guitar and felt the ping of the metal etching itself into the pads of his fingertips, but the books were always there whenever they needed them. They were a necessary tool to any good hunter; they were like coming home in a way.

Michonne walked to the very back of the building to the reference section and started idly running her hand along one of the shelves, picking up dust along the way. She wasn't looking at the encyclopedias, instead her eyes were shooting towards the boxes on the shelves, filled with newspapers, magazines, and microfiche.

When Sam arrived about ten minutes later, Dean still had little idea what it was that Michonne was looking for. He had left her to use the computer and tried to find any information on spells that could rip apart kids without much luck. A few people had started blogs about some pretty nasty spellwork, but they either turned out to be fake or nothing that could do the amount of damage they had seen on Hector.

Sam was able to relay what little he learned with Rick at the Martinez home, which was basically a load of nothing, but they stored it away for use later on. It was obvious they were going to need that autopsy report before they could get very far.

Michonne found them crowded around Sam's laptop with multiple tabs open to various knives. "They're still working on digitizing all the records, so you might need to dig a bit through here. But this should be everything." She gingerly set a large stack of yellow newspapers on the table in front of them, which Sam immediately reached for.

"You found the way into Sam's heart. Stay a while and maybe you'll get into his pants, too-- _ouch_!" Dean rubbed his shin where Sam's steel toe connected with it, his glare receiving the famous Sammy bitch face in return. Michonne only shook her head, completely unfazed.

"How do you still have these?" Sam thumbed through the centuries-old paper gently in his hands. The one he held was a weekly issue for the town of Elberta itself while the one Dean picked up was a monthly piece from Atlanta.

"There used to be a historical building not too far from here. Barrington House. It burned down a while back but these were saved, thankfully."

Sam's eyes were alight as he skimmed the articles from days of old. An upcoming storm was projected to be devastating to the corn crops. An article on being a good housewife that actually hid raunchy gossip from the knitting bee. An obituary for a William Stewart. Before he started reading a serial by Mike Donaghue, he looked up to see Dean watching him, an annoyingly amused smile on his face. Sam felt his cheeks his slightly, but hoped the glare he shot hid it.

"You know, you could help instead of staring at me."

"But then how would I see all those pearly whites of yours?" Dean really just didn't want to read the news about a battle at some marshland he had never heard of. Sam probably knew. Sam would probably yap his ear off for twenty minutes with a full play by play.

It was tedious work. Most of the print was not anything they needed--and in Dean's case, wanted--to be reading. He tried to skim as quickly as he could, skipping over anything that was too boring to be useful. The obituaries did prove slightly useful: a large group of people all died on September 3, 1745, but there was no mention of how they died and being around Sam's age wasn't enough to be suspicious back then.

Dean was just starting to worry they would have to find a genealogist of some sort just to learn about the more gritty details of these people when Sam shoved his own paper on top of the one Dean was reading. "Dude!" he said indignantly as he lost his place in a story about numerous goats going missing. But he replaced it with a much more satisfied "Dude" when he saw what Sam was trying to show him: at the same time that the animals were going missing, three people had died "mysteriously" and the crops were dying.

Carla Denin had to have been the first gossip columnist in Georgia. Or maybe the first conspiracy theorist. Every time someone died or got married or something even slightly off kilter happened, Carla was writing about it in some of the most flowery prose Dean had ever read. But even he had to admit it was the most useful information they had found so far. 

In this case, the three victims were teenage farmhands for one of the wealthier families in town. Their goats were some of the one that had gone missing before the boys, though other people in the area also lost animals and crops. Nothing seemed to come of the disappearances.

Carla would also write petty articles about weddings where it always seemed that there was another man in the picture. Dean snorted a bit at her article about Mary Fisher winning her third pie baking contest at the fair, even though, according to Carla, she was known for occasionally setting her roof on fire trying to cook dinner.

Michonne excused herself, muttering something about "fitting right in." Sam watched as she made her way back to the reference shelves before he whispered, "The kid was flayed alive and then just dumped. What has claws like that?"

"I'd say a werewolf is most obvious. But it's not that time of month."

"Ghosts could explain why the town always have weird stuff happening."

"Yeah but nothing weird has been happening recently. I don't think they're connected right now."

"You think we came here for one case and just happened to have stumbled onto another? The odds of that are--"

"Yeah Sam, I know, but since when do we meet normal odds?"

Sam had to relent to that one and nodded. He thought for another moment, trying to piece together this puzzle. The problem was he may have three puzzles in front of him and had no idea which pieces went to which one and if he even had all the pieces. "What about a harpy?"

"They wouldn't toss the victims back, would they?"

"No, probably wouldn't. What about a rawhead?"

"Didn't seem to be any bite marks and again, wouldn't send them back." They were getting nowhere. Nothing the fit the pattern here, so what the hell could they be dealing with? Sam ran his hands through his hair while Dean's put his face into his hand and breathed deep.

Kids getting kidnapped or disappearing from their friends' houses. One turned up scratched up to hell. The town was weird in every sense of the word for the part couple hundred years and no one seemed to really notice or care. But they cared about the kids. Who were just dumped after they were ripped apart. "Hellhounds rip you to shreds," Dean said in desperation.

"What would a twelve-year-old sell his soul for?" Sam was as condescending as Dean expected him to be, though he really wouldn't be that surprised. It was probably only a matter of time before he would have a young kid dead from a demon deal gone wrong.

"Then my money is still on a curse."

"But why curse kids?"

"I don't know, they're annoying? You were a little bitch at that age."

"Fuck you, Dean." Sam paused, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. He typed something into his laptop, the gears turning quickly in his mind enough that steam should be coming out of his ears. Dean just watched him, taking in the quirk of his lip as he contemplated whatever it was he was reading, his eyes widening ever so slightly when he found something good.

Dean could watch this show for hours. Hell he probably has. He'd be lying if he said that whenever they had to do research he didn't catch himself zoning off thinking about Sam. Even when they were kids and Sam insisted on being normal and doing homework as if it mattered, Dean would sometimes look at the boy in front of him and fantasize about running off somewhere amazing, with wide open fields where they could just sleep under the stars and big rocks to climb onto and see a waterfall or two crash down around them.

Even now, years later, he still wondered if that kind of thing could be possible for the two of them. They had taken vacations before, where they'd take a few nights or sometimes even a week off from hunting and just drive. Sam always loved the drives by the water or surrounded by trees, letting the greens and blues of their surroundings just overtake him. Where, for a few minutes, they could forget that the fate of the world legitimately rested on their shoulders.

Dean didn't really care what the scenery was, just as long as there was a road and some Zeppelin and Sam with him, the rest didn't matter in the slightest. He could let the Impala basically drive for him while he pictured a different world, a different time, where he and Sam were just two guys driving cross country for a concert or "to see the country" or just plain for the hell of it. Anything but needing to put their lives in danger.

Other times, he pictured them like beatniks without a care in the world and just wanting to be as rebellious as possible before it all came crashing down around them.

Did Sam even know that he read Kerouac multiple times? Sam took his copy of On the Road when he left for Stanford--come to think of it he never gave it back--so he would have seen all the creases and folds in the pages and the barbecue sauce stain when Dean was less careful than he should have been with his burger.

"What do you know about her?" Sam pulled Dean back to the present and he followed the younger's gaze to Michonne, still over by the same shelves, her foot propped up casually on the lower shelf, a large book held up by her knee as she read. There was a flash as the light caught on her watch when she moved her hand to adjust the braids falling over her eyes.

"Girlfriend of Colette's dad. She's butting into everything a little hard, but she's a PI, it's kinda their job to be up our asses. Add in wanting answers for her kid, too."

"She could be involved."

"She's definitely involved." Dean didn't hesitate when he answered. There was no way to convince him that she wasn't somehow a part of this weird mess they found themselves in.

"Take a look at this." Dean move his chair over until he was squished next to his brother, their shoulders brushing and Dean's foot sneaking a hair past his chair leg to find Sam's. He bit back a smile when he felt the familiar pressure as Sam pushed his foot even closer to Dean's. They were just adjusting themselves to fit into the small space they had, but still, it was nice whenever Dean felt the intimate almost caress and the warmth that always flooded him directly afterwards.

He focused on the image in front of him though. Michonne, obviously a few years younger if the length of her hair gave anything away, was staring back at him, the same fierce gleam in her dark eyes, along with a wide, confident smile. Her hair was pulled away from her face with a bright orange headband, the only color to contrast the white fencing uniform she wore. Underneath her photo in large letters proclaimed, "Stinton a Favorite for US Olympic Team."

A second article from Google stated the same, that Michonne Stinton was to be replacing an injured teammate for the US fencing team and was hoping to be named the first African-American woman to receive a gold medal. However, the third article, dated about two months later, told a much different tale. People were up in arms about the fact that Michonne was walking away from everything, giving up not only her spot on the team but the sport of fencing indefinitely, only stating "personal reasons" for her immediate departure. There was nothing else to find about her for years afterwards. Like she fell right off the grid and just happened to show up here in Elberta.

"No wonder I wanna go snowboarding down those shoulders, damn," Dean said appreciatively.

"She has a boyfriend, Dean."

"And that means I can't take a peak at the menu every now and then?"

"You really are a dog, you know that?"

"Still makes you my bitch. How's "Enter the Dragon" sound tonight?" The code told Sam to shut down all his tabs instantly as Michonne approached them. Her arms were empty of the books she had been reading.

"I'm heading out unless you need anything else."

"No, we're good here. Thanks again for getting this for us. It's a big help."

"No problem. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Dean narrowed his eyes as she exited the building, her phone going directly to her ear as she stepped out into the humidity.

"Doesn't exactly sound like a grieving mother."

"Everyone grieves differently."

"Or she doesn't care. She could know where Colette is already."

"You think she took her own boyfriend's kid? On what grounds?"

"She's nosing into the case! She's acting too...too normal that it's not normal, Sammy."

"Or she's trying to process that her kid is missing." Dean slammed his hand into the table as he stood, ignoring the glare from the librarian at the desk. He walked straight to the shelves Michonne had been so absorbed in a moment ago and grabbed the thick book he had seen her holding along with a few others that bordered it.

"Still don't believe me," he said, dropping the books in front of Sam, narrowly missing his laptop. Sam picked up the largest, The Books of Lost Shadows. Fuck. Dean had also picked up Whispers of the Moon and Lawfully Lawless. Double fuck, she was reading about witchcraft. "We need to follow her."

As much as Sam wanted argue and get Dean, for once, to not run head first into something, Sam had to agree that this was the best lead they had. While he wanted to believe that even witches wouldn't use their loved ones for their spells and curses, these were the facts he was looking at right now. Reluctantly, he nodded and said, "We'll go tonight. After we get out of these monkey suits."

***

Michonne may have been a mystery with no recent past, but Daryl Dixon was a complete anomaly. He had no arrests, no social media presence, no newspaper articles, not even a parking ticket under his name. All Sam could find was his driver's license and yes, the face on it was the one that he saw at Caesar Martinez's house that morning. But past that, it was like the man didn't exist at all.

His family, or who Sam assumed was his family, was a little bit easier to find. They could assume that Daryl lived in Cornelia, Georgia until a fire burned down his house with his mother in it. The irony was not lost on either Winchester brother; Dean going so far as to feel a small amount of empathy for the man who could be helping a witch, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

After that, he and his older brother, Merle, disappeared off the grid with their father, Will, the older two men only coming out of the woodwork to add to their arrest records; Will getting slapped with numerous drunk and disorderlies as well as a few assaults, while Merle wracked up his own D&D's, drug possessions, and a dishonorable discharge from the army.

Will had been dead for years and Merle spent more time in the clink than out, though he had been out for a few years now and was also living in Elberta. Daryl, however, was either slippery enough to never get caught or somehow stayed on the straight and narrow.

Dean looked at Sam. His baby brother, who never heard that Dean was proud of him for getting into Stanford despite everything that was their lives growing up, and he would never know that Dean read his college essay and was touched beyond words that Sam had said that Dean of all people was his hero. Sam, who was a good kid, who didn't deserve this life that Dean dragged him back into until he had no choice but to stay.

Not for the first time, Dean wished like hell that he didn't want Sam by his side. Wished that he didn't need Sam beside him to breathe normally and that he could just have a normal relationship with his brother and be okay with a phone call every week or a few texts back and forth, Sam telling him about his boring law firm and how he was working on some dumb case about a divorce or eminent domain or something else equally boring and safe.

Safe, like Sam had had, like he'd wanted until Dean got in the way. And look where it got them. No home to speak of, always running from something just to run into something else. This Merle had probably done better than him and he was in juvie for half of his little brother's life. How much of a failure did that make Dean?

"Dean," Sam's quiet voice pulled Dean from his angry musings. "Think I found something. Get this." His tone was neutral, but his eyes were lit with hidden excitement. Was Daryl a serial killer, or in Witness Protection? Or maybe a serial killer in Witness Protection?

Dean leaned over Sam to see the laptop screen. A large, digital drawing of something hideous adorned the screen. Its pitch black face was long, ending in a protruding snout with razor sharp teeth extending over its thin lips. It had ropes of thick, dark hair sprouting out in every direction, deepening its maddened look. Two twisted horns protruded from its forehead.The body was the same intense black color, almost camouflaging it into the murky green background. Instead of hands it had long, thin brown claws and hooves for feet.

"Recognize anything?" Dean stared. He couldn't remember ever seeing a monster like this before. It wasn't often they had water creatures to deal with. He scanned the picture again, trying to find familiarity somewhere. Its hair was wild like Medusa's, but they didn't have any random statues popping up.

The legs caught Dean's attention again. Half horse, half human was a centurion...no, a centaur. But why would someone draw them underwater when they lived in forests? Plus its hooves were--hold up!

"Its hooves are backwards. That necklace they found on Caesar's car!" Sam's proud smile sent a burst of excitement through Dean's blood. "What is it though?"

"A kelpie," Sam answered and Dean knew he was about to start a lecture on the matter. You know, if this was a class he could have taken at school, with Sam as the hip, fun teacher, Dean would have paid more attention in school. He would never tire of Sam going all nerdy librarian on lore and myth. "It's a water-dwelling monster from Scotland. Sometimes it takes the shape of a horse, only distinguishable by its backwards hooves. Other times its an attractive man who will lure girls to the water, where they attack and drown them."

"Think it could be her?"

"It's very rare for them to take a woman's form."

"So Daryl then?"

"I don't know, Dean, he's already someone you'd want to warn your daughter about. It's usually a respectable looking man."

So they were looking for more James Stewart than James Dean. They were getting somewhere finally. "They could just be trying to find answers," Sam finished, the little smug lilt to his voice so subtle if Dean were anyone else he would have missed it. Why must the kid always be right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story took a drastically different turn than I was originally expecting and I'm excited to get it out, but I need to take some time and write out a good chunk of it to make sure everything still goes smoothly. Plus I got some pretty shitty news at work recently so with all that's happening, posts might be sporadic.
> 
> But I hope everyone is enjoying reading so far and is excited for the wild ride this story is about to take (I know I am). Thanks for tuning in!


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